


Only Strings of Numbers

by scriptscribbles



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4868105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptscribbles/pseuds/scriptscribbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny Pink is lost and drifting through the Nethersphere, aimless and alone. A quiet existence, empty and monotonous, but peaceful. But when a chain of events involving a forest, a child, a woman named River Song, and a horde of nightmares draws him back into danger, that peace is shattered for good. But in the afterlife, what is there left to fight for?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forest of Undead

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a brief thing I did for Danny Pink Appreciation Week on Tumblr, though I have always fully intended to extend this to a full story.

A vortex. A milky, spinning, swirling wheel in the air of the Nethersphere, disrupting the endless sameness of the abandoned virtual world. A curious crowd of the long dead had gathered, but as usual, none dared to investigate further, all to scared to risk their un-lives on something strange and new. Danny, however, had long ago lost those worries. He’d lived with a purpose, giving back to children to atone for his greatest sin. But that child was safe now, cared for by the woman he had loved. So what was the point to saving himself for further un-existence? Might at least know what the spinny thing was.

The crowd parted for him. They’d done a lot of that, treating him like he was special, like a superior, for what he had done to save the world. He hated it. Made him feel like him, that Doctor, rather than the ordinary soldier he was.

He reached out towards it, like the finger of a man intent on touching god as portrayed by Michelangelo. One touch. That was all it took. A touch of the howling gale, and he was whipped from that existence.

A very different world greeted him as the blinding light faded, filtered through a canopy of bright green trees. Birds called, at first melodically, but then ominously, feeling like a fairy tale world on the brink of nightmare. And then, bleeding into the ambient noise, a bleeping. Beep. Beedle. Beep. Bop.

Danny whirled about, searching for the source of the audio intrusion. A beautiful blonde woman in military attire. She was holding some sort of gizmo like what the Doctor would have made, lots of swirling dials and odd bits and pieces stuck together with what looked like gaffer tape.

“Hello, sweetie! She exclaimed brightly, while one hand reached for a gun strapped to her leg.

Danny just stared, baffled. “I’m sorry, what?”

Her smile flickered only for a second, maintaining her straight face with the precision of an expert. “Old habits,” she explained, her eyes scanning the horizon. “My name’s River Song.”

River Song? Danny wondered. What kind of name was that? Sounded like the weird stuff Clara was always going on about, all her adventures. Danny always tried to listen, but never quite could take it all in. But the smile on her face, the enthusiasm with which she shared her world with him, that was worth listening quietly for. But definitely an odd name. “I’m Danny Pink,” he replied, waiting for the usual smirk at his surname. To his surprise, there was none. Instead, just a pause, the absence of birds a new and very present silence.

“Where am I?” he asked, desperate to fill the growing, stifling quiet.

“The Library data core”, she said, raising her gun towards some nearby shrubs. “I suppose you could say it’s a sort of afterlife…”

“Oh, not another one,” Danny, sighed.

“…and it’s under attack,” River concluded, glancing at him. “The fabric of this digital reality is frayed. You’ve been able to just walk in, and others have, too. Less friendly or good-looking others.”  


“I’m done being a soldier,” Danny told her. “Just point me to the nearest whirly thing and I’ll be on my way.” After a moment, his brain still processing what she’d said, he blushed.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she told him. “The tears are random, and most of them filled with nightmares. Either help defend CAL or get running, because they’re coming.”

“CAL?” Danny asked.

“Charlotte Abagail Lux,” River explained. “A child at the heart of this world. I suppose you could say we’re in her dreams.”

“A child,” repeated Danny. He’d spent most of his life giving back to kids, trying to make up for his unforgivable mistake. Teaching, playing, leading. His guilt had drove him onward to kinder and kinder deeds. But it was gone now, and he had yet to assess what was left.

And that’s when it struck him. Though the guilt had clouded away all other feelings, now it had been stripped away, he realized something else. He didn’t just help children because of his sins. He helped kids because he enjoyed it. Because children were precious and beautiful, and something he now realized he would never have. But if he could spend his afterlife with a purpose, protecting one child for all eternity, he would do it. He was Danny Pink, and he would not let children suffer.

Twigs snapped and branches broke as a horde of shadows began to pour in, spiders and snakes and hooded men and all the other horrifying monsters children try to forget were coming, and only he and this River Song were there to stop them.

He knew what he had to do.

“Give me a gun.”


	2. The Giving Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonding time over guns, monsters, and reckless self-endangerment.

The metal felt cool in Danny's hand, but somehow also buzzed with warmth, alive and bursting with energy, a drive for action. So many years had passed since he had held a gun, but his fingers had never forgot, firmly greeting their deadly old friend. An enormous spider with metal teeth, a whirling maw of gears and blades, lunged for him, eight razor sharp legs tearing trees, other beasts, and even itself, scuttled closer, the first to charge. The training of his youth took over, with a few bangs announcing the arrival of several holes in the spider's cranium, acidic orange goo spewing forth onto the forest floor.

"You seem to know what's going on. You've certainly come with plenty of guns. Do you have a plan?" he asked the River woman, who had been carefully picking off a few misshapen floating doll heads, laughing as bullets tore away their button eyes.

"Protect CAL," she replied, blowing apart one of the heads, red yarn hair wriggling away on the floor of its own accord.

Danny had his own problems, as the spider's belly burst open, millions of tiny eggs hatching to a swarm. "Anything specific? They don't exactly seem to be slowing down!"

The blonde woman pirouetted on the spot, blasting the hoods of the robed figures to reveal masses of wrinkled flesh. "Shoot more, then!" she exclaimed. To punctuate her ballet of death, she stomped one foot, crushing the wriggling doll hair worms.

"What if we run out of bullets?" Danny asked, kicking at the swarms of spiders, his shoes shredding away.

She responded by firing at the next wave, consisting of rotting heads walking on four human arms each. Each ended in carefully manicured nails painted bright pink, but bright flecks of red dribbled over them as River Song completed her work. She didn't even turn her head as she explained, "They're digital constructs, they can't run out."

"And the monsters?" Danny leaped away as the last of his shoes fell into tatters, exposing bare feet. He knew he couldn't hold out against the minute millions for long.

"Like you, I expect," River replied. "Since we lost CAL, this place has been tearing itself apart. Other datascapes are bleeding through." Bleeding was exactly what many of the beasts were doing, dribbling on the forest floor, but still they pressed on.

"Lost her?" Danny paused midway up a tree, trying to climb to safety. "I thought you said we were protecting her!"

"We are," she assured him, kicking aside a grasping hooded figure."She's here and she's not. It's complicated. Now's not the time."

Danny grumbled, climbing higher. "The Doctor never explained either, and look where that got me."

River gasped. "The Doctor?" she asked. Her moment's distraction, however, cost her dearly. One fleshy hand clutched her ankle, dragging her closer to the ground. She shot it, but another came, grasping tightly enough to bruise her virtual skin. "Get down from there and help!"

"This isn't working," Danny said softly.

"Of course it isn't working, you're climbing up a tree while I get pummeled!" River yelled, exasperated, desperately kicking out as the hordes closed in.

"No, this isn't working," he repeated, climbing a branch. "We're just trying to deal with the effects. We need to deal with the cause."

As River's neck was buried under a mess of colored, misshapen limbs, she cried "This isn't the time for dramatic speeches, please just get to the point!"

"Infinite bullets, right?" asked Danny. He began to fire rapidly. Splinters and sawdust whipped his face with each percussive shot, cracking and snapping of the trunk of the tree he clung to filling his ears. Bam. Bam. Bam. A steady rhythm of destruction beneath him as he began to wobble in the wood, an unsteady platform toppling.

He fell quickly, the weight of the massive tree pulling it down. Amidst the flashes of branches flying in every direction, he knew the milky white vortex still swirled, his target found. The impact of the crash was tremendous, whipping his body to the floor with a painful finality. His theory had worked, though. The tear was clogged. No way back for him, nor for the monsters, at least not here.

A screech penetrated the very fabric of reality, unlike any he had ever heard before, a guttural roar with a hint of mechanical gurgling. The beasts fled into the shadows, leaving River Song relatively unscathed. She ran to the fallen tree immediately, treading on the corpses of dolls and spiders and other horrible things.

"Danny?" she called, furious with worry.

He coughed, his whole chest protesting with agony at the action. A digital reality, it seemed, but the pain was still very real.

"Thank God you've survived," she sighed with relief. "Of all the reckless, foolish, dangerous, ridiculous—"

"But I was—" Danny protested.

"—brilliant things I've seen. Absolutely fantastic. Never should have worked, but isn't that always the way? I'd tell you never to do it again, but knowing the kind of things I'd done, I'd be a hypocrite."

Danny's mouth opened and closed noiselessly, giving him the appearance of a startled herring.

"Come on, don't just stand there!" River exclaimed, hoisting up his bruised body from the dirt. "Before they can regroup, we need to get to CAL!"

Baffled and bemused, Danny felt compelled to follow.


	3. Over their Graves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two dead people. One room. A lot of baggage. And a box.

The rustic cabin stood forlorn in the darkened woods, a fairy-tale mainstay left forgotten and disheveled. But for Professor River Song, this was more than just a wood and rock construction ravaged by time. It was safety for her and her new companion. And inside, the hope they needed, so close and far away.

The travel had been wordless, so many questions left unspoken as the two fled the site of their battle. A sense of urgency had overcome both, a pressing need to leave the disturbing carnage of the monster horde far behind. But as River slid the barricades, deadlocks, anything and everything into place, a new feeling dawned on both. Relief. And with the relief, the questions returned. The two dead travelers stared wordlessly at each other for only the briefest of moments, a silent debate of who to go first, mouths opening and closing. But River, in her endless self-confidence, won over.

"The Doctor," she stated. Perhaps less of a question, more even an accusation.

Danny sighed. "Of course it all comes back to him. I'm dead and he still won't give me a break!"

"Oh, if you think the Doctor's persistent," she smiled, "you haven't met me." In an exaggerated motion, she reached out a hand. "River Song. The woman who married him."

Danny nodded. Of course. Who else would the Doctor marry but someone just as mad and commanding and eager for adventure as him? That was probably why he liked Clara, after all. He reached out and took River's hand. "Danny Pink. The man who died getting him off the hook."

Laughter resounded from River, with the wryest of smiles. "You're hardly the only one to do that, dear." Seeing Danny's frown, she added, "oh, don't worry about it. I did, too."

"So that's what we are, then?" Danny asked. "The dead of the Doctor?"

"Part of a proud tradition," River added, "for the noblest of causes."

"I wouldn't go that far." Danny sighed, turning away to examine the room. It was sparsely furnished. A few chairs, spindly and limp. A stag's head above an empty fireplace, staring blindly. A door, scratched. And in the center, a mahogany coffin. The latter attracted his attention and he approached, River close behind.

"I would," River countered, stepping between him and the coffin to cut him off. "The Doctor is difficult. The Doctor is careless. The Doctor is inconsistent and careless and very, very dangerous. But do you know what else he is?"

"Last I heard of him, he said he was an idiot."

"That too. But more than that, the Doctor is a hero. He doesn't like to think of himself as one, of course. He did for a bit, but it got to is head. I helped work on that. I suppose I was born for that. But he is wonderful, Danny. Sometimes people die. Sometimes it's his fault. Sometimes he inspires people to die for him. We're living proof of that, or rather not. But that's just the bad days. He saves people. More people than you've ever met owe their lives to the Doctor. More than you ever could meet from just one species on one planet in one time in one corner of the endless infinity he calls home. And when he gets his way, and on a good day he does, everybody lives, to go on inspired, to become something much greater than they ever were before. All because one daft, wonderful man decided to sail through the universe and make things better wherever he could."

"And what does that make us, then?"

"We died on a good day. We're saved," River gestured around to their surroundings.

"And the coffin?"

River stepped wordlessly out of the way, gesturing to Danny to proceed. He approached cautiously, unsure of how far he could trust River but wanting to all the same. His hands brushed the light, polished wood, reddish sheen sparkling beneath his fingers even in the dim light. Somehow, despite the obvious links to death it represented, it was warm. His fingers fumbled at the clasps, grasped the sides, and pulled the lid open.

A child lay on her back in the coffin, her straight brown hair swirling softly along her still body, robed in white. Her round, freckled face was motionless, eyes closed. A bittersweet image of tranquil peace, resting in her shining box of the dead.

"The Doctor, on a good day, saves everyone," River explained, leaning over the coffin to join him," and that's exactly what he did here. But the Doctor is gone now, and I can't save everyone."

"Is she—?"

"Allow me to introduce our host, Charlotte Abigail Lux," answered the blonde Time Lady, aging centuries with a single expression, "She saved everyone here, with the help of the Doctor. But now she's lost, and I don't know how to save her."


	4. Dreams within Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedtime in the data core. No, I don't know why they need to sleep, either.

One would have thought they could program a better sofa. Lumpy, threadbare, torn, and the most garish shade of orange. Danny lay awkwardly on top of the cushions, arm dangling off to the side, tingling as the circulation got cut off. He wasn't entirely sure why sleep was necessary in the data core, but River's explanation was full of too many long words for him to care. He couldn't keep up with it all, the matrix technology or energy compression or any of the other things she lectured him on. It was too much, too different, too, well, Doctor-ish.

River, of course, had gotten the other room, the one with the bed. She had asked first, and he really didn't feel like arguing with a woman who could use a gun that well. She offered to share, but Danny pretended not to hear her offer, staring intently at the patterning on the floor instead. Bluffing about an interest in floorboards was difficult, but it was a lot easier than the more awkward situations sure to arrive were he to respond.

Danny lay for a while, alone in the dark, watching the stillness. It was eerie watching the coffin, knowing that much as it looked as though he was alone, there was another life in the room. Charlotte was silent, not even a breath to be heard from her deathly cradle. Quiet as the grave.

But as so often is the case, sleep interrupted his thoughts, whisking him from one dream to another. A foggy plain stretched before him, the ruddy soil rife with tiny cracks like veins. Tiny drops of rain pierced the veil of mist, dull in the light of the obscured moon. They fell into a light rhythm, lightly scratching the arid sand. Accompanying the beat came a soft voice that weaved its way through the curtains of vapor that hung heavy in the air, high and piercing but melodic, too. And with the voice came a word, sung over and over again.

"Danny! Danny! Danny!"

He stumbled forward as the droplets fell harder, soaking him far more quickly than his nervous, fearful sweat could. There was something about the cold that made him feel all the more alive, even as the growing patches of mud clung at his feet. The song of his name came from every side, but he was certain of the way to go. The landscape stretched out before him endlessly, and yet with each stride he seemed to cover miles. With each step the sound grew louder, a small silhouette becoming visible, a shadow somehow gleaming and sparkling.

"Danny Pink!"

The voice called, the silhouette waved, but the distance became harder to traverse. The rain was pouring harder now, his vision blurred and his every step lethargic, dragged down by the mire that had formed around his shoes. His clothes were soaked and splattered, and the chill pierced deep, down to the marrow of his bones. But the sparkling darkness shone as his beacon, waiting for him to come, calling for him to come.

"Come and find me!"

The water filled his eyes, mixing with the tears he hadn't even noticed he was shedding. He fell, his knees submerged deep and stuck fast. Stones sliced and bruised his legs, but the pain did not bring any warmth to his limbs. Kneeling in the dark and the cold, the rain bellowed its victory, and a loud crash came, followed by a flash of light.

"Danny!"

The silhouette stood before him now, its glittering light deflecting away the storm. The drops of rain that had beaten him so cruelly now fell still, suspended in the air, illuminated bright and sparkling. The lights flashed as shapes in the air, switching between circles and lines. Zeroes and ones. Coding as magic, responding to her call. Her. The shadow had a name, and it was one he knew.

"Charlotte Abigail Lux."

"Danny Pink," she smiled down at him. 

"But you were missing," he said. "You're lost."

The shining girl tutted. "You just haven't found me yet."

"You're right here," Danny responded, baffled.

"I found you," she replied, "that doesn't mean it works the other way round."

Danny groaned, struggling to get to his feet and out of the muck, his energy sapped. "That doesn't make any sense," he groaned.

"Few things do here in the datacore. That's part of the fun."

"River understood it," Danny insisted, "she knows all about matrix programming and quantum, uh, whatsits."

"I don't need River," CAL sighed. "I need you. _You_ need her."

"Me? What do you need me for?"

"Just come find me. Follow the moon," she pleaded. "I need you."

"Why me?" Danny asked. "How do I find you?" But the girl had vanished, absorbed into the binary sprites that surrounded her.

The crashing sound came again, and the rain and fog fell in a single sheet, thundering as it rushed into his throat, choking him. Moonlight finally shone through as the world was blasted away in the rushing torrent.

Or was it the claws around his neck doing that? Danny's eyes flashed open to see the face of one of the beasts from the forest leaning over him, his face wet with its slobber. And so Danny did what any man brave enough would do in his situation. He screamed.


End file.
